Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Hermione meets Dennis












The phone rings.

It's ESOS.

"Mum, I've missed the bus from town. Can you collect me from Littledean at 3.35 p.m.?"

The phone rings again.

"Where's ESOS? He's not on the bus." Says Sensible.

"He missed it. He's catching the one to Littledean."

I am in the garden, trying to do theatre school admin. Beautiful summer's day but enough breeze to catch a few cheques from time to time. Run round the garden to pick up the cheques. Exercise, admin and fresh air in one. There's a bonus. Haven't quite finished by the time Sensible gets home and it's now time to collect Gymnast and Tinkerbell Mushroom.

Sensible arrives home and sensibly sees that I am busy, so offers to go across the road for the girls, leaving me just enough time to scoop up the last of the cheques from the garden and get in the car to collect ESOS.

ED is home already as she is still on study leave.

Back home again. I get everyone into the car. Gymnast hasn't cleaned her teeth. Out of car. Upstairs again. Downstairs to find to my horror one or two older children cleaning their teeth in the car and disposing of the toothpaste onto the path.

Just have time to get cross. Then leave.

Get stuck behind slow thing going up the hill.

Manage to take a couple of back doubles and slip into the dentist just a whisker earlier than hubby who drives from work.

We are called in en masse.

"They become more like a gang as they get older don't they?" says the dentist. "I notice that with mine, and I've only three".

Gang is a good description. Bigger, together and very much of a pack, they don't look like that angelic set of five tinies I had not so long ago. In the last few weeks ESOS, Sensible and ED all seem to have overtaken me in height and even Gymnast and Tinkerbell Mushroom seem to have grown.

We have the usual shuffling around of who is going to sit where on the increasingly small window seat. The dentist looks on with a mixture of amusement and resignation.

"Who's first he says?" Hubby opts for the chair first and as he lies down there is more kerfuffle from the gang, causing a very nice pot plant to topple over and crash on the floor. The pot is in one piece thankfully, but the surgery isn't enhanced by the ornamental pebbles all over the floor.

"Oh I'm so sorry" I say. "Have you got a dustpan? I'll clean it up." "Don't worry." says the amazingly cheery dentist. "We'll do it after you have gone." Along with whatever other mess we might leave, I think to myself.

ESOS hasn't been wearing his brace for the last few nights. No, correction, ESOS wears his brace only on very special occasions. The excuses vary as to why he is wearing it that day. Currently one of the clips on his teeth that holds the brace in place is a bit wobbly. Dentist look at the problem. "No, that's fine he says. You can carry on wearing that until you next see the orthodontist. Have you not been wearing it long?" "Well," I say. "He's worn it once or twice since he received it at Christmas." ESOS then gets much deserved lecture about how he will have to wear it forever if he doesn't wear it regularly. It's the same speech he has heard from the orthodontist and our friend who is a dentist. Is he listening I wonder, or is he thinking about anything else that teenage boys might think about. I suspect the latter.

As ESOS gets off the chair the noise increases and I need to talk about Sensible's appointment with an orthodontist for her teeth, which it has to be said, thirty years ago would have been considered absolutely perfect. Modern teenagers are less happy with that decision though.

I can't hear myself think.

I dispatch ESOS and Tinkerbell Mushroom to the waiting room.

Next minute ESOS is lifting up Tinkerbell Mushroom to the surgery window from outside. ED tells him in no uncertain terms that that is not acceptable behaviour, in a way that Hermione Granger would tell Dennis the Menace.

All the ones inside are now helping themselves to the water from the water machine.

"Right. That's it then says hubby. I think we are done." I see relief spreading over his face.

"Not quite" I say. It's my turn."

As we leave I thank the dentist. As we apparently have a clean bill of health there are no follow up appointments needed.

"So, hopefully you haven't got to see us for another six months then. I bet that's a relief."

He just smiles.

But we both know what that smile means.

30 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another six months respite is a relief for the parents as well as the dentist. Afurther few minutes there and we would have had full-on internecine warfare. Perhaps they will have moved beyond this phase in six months time? Sadly, I somehow doubt it.

BTW, I reckon Hermione and Dennis are pretty good analogues for ED and ESOS, for all those out there who haven't had the pleasure.

Anonymous said...

haha, thay sounds hectic and fuuny- just like when mum used to take the 2 of us girls to the sentist- the other two would always make me cry by calling me metal mouth/ brace face.....

FH said...

That was a smile of relief for him!!;D
LOL @ depositing paste on the road! Man! These kids sometimes!!
I had to take my kids for Eye tests,couldn't wait to get out of there ASAP!!:)

Unknown said...

I HATE DENTISTS!!

Akelamalu said...

Oh 'smiles' all round then? :)

ChrisB said...

This has reminded me I'm way over due a check up must remember to book it tomorrow. The trouble is by tomorrow it will have slipped my 'senior' mind!!

Alice Band said...

I went to the dentist with my eldest daughter just last week. She is not the most amenable child at the best of times and as he was pulling her lip this way and that she shot up form her chair and declared "I'm not a bloody horse you know". Oh God...

headless chicken said...

A rather chaotic visit to the dentist Sally! At least all yours are happy to sit in the chair though. All mine are apart from Perfectionist who refuses to even look at it! Our dentist is my sister-in-laws partner so a friendly,familiar face but she wont let him any where near her teeth..she is SO stubborn!
I agree with hubby..Hermione and Dennis suits ED and ESOS!
BTW - Tonight after bathing Smiler I applied the propolis and aloe gel mixture ,covering his poor spotty little body so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a more restful night. Thanks for the idea!:)X

~ej said...

yay for the good appointments. and i am LOL @ dennis and hermione, that is SO funny! :)
i do.not.like dentists, that's hubby's job. i do the doc appts and school stuff...took two of them once, it was terrible! never again...

Anonymous said...

Dentists are very brave people. ESOS might be interested to know that my youngest brother stuck to his brace routine as instructed and sunsequently beat all the predictions for when it could come out for good. It is worth it in the long run.

la bellina mammina said...

A trip to the dentist is never welcomed by the kids but yours sounded like fun! :-)

sallywrites said...

Hubby - We may have moved on. You never know!
Eliza - I think braces used to be far less socailly acceptable didn't they? Now it's almost a badge of honour to be under an orthodontist. To be fair to ESOS the brace is a headgear one and it's not nice for him.........but against that, he doesn't have to wear it out, only at home and at night.
Asha - Shared sympathies!:)
John - I used to hate dentists when I was younger, but my current one is really nice.
Ak - Yes indeed!
Chris - Have you made the appointment yet? I made your fruit bread by the way. Delicious. I've eaten far too much of it. I actually made two batches and put less sugar and a bit of salt in the second batch. Very nice. Go to Chris's site for the recipe. it very "un" labour intensive too.
Alice - Oh dear! Poor you. You must have wanted to die! :)
HC - had the same problem with Tinkerbell Mushroom and Gymnast for ages. Then suddenly on one visit they complied, and have been happy to go ever since. I never did get to the bottom of why they changed their minds so suddenly. It was fortunate that they did though, because it turned out that Gymnast had a slight developmental problem with two of her teeth - hence the small op at Christmas time. Fortunately she had got over her fear of dentists in time for it to be discovered. She also broke a front tooth a couple of years ago sadly, but again, thankfully she was happy enough to get that fixed too. You'll probably find that Perfectionist will do the same one day. Just go in and sit in the chair........
EJ - Yes, we too have different jobs for each other. You have to share it around a bit in a big family don't you? :)
Ig - Will tell ESOS - but sadly he takes little advice! Good for your brother!
La Bellina - Fun......... in the sort of fun sort of way that gets the adrenaline going at full speed, and allows us to practise any calming down techniques that we might have..... :)

Flowerpot said...

I'm lucky in having a very good looking dentist - just as well as I've had to go a lot recently! Good blog - I feel for you!

sallywrites said...

Thank you Flowerpot. Welcome to the site! I liked your site too!

y.Wendy.y said...

At least you go to the dentist. I keep forgetting and now it's The Ex who takes the kids..good thing, otherwise their teeth would have fallen out by the time they turn 16. As for me? Pah. My teeth are sound.

Jayne said...

I hate taking my son to the dentist. He screamed last time because he needed an injection in the gum. I think the whole county heard it.

Your trip sounds fun.... ;o)

sallywrites said...

Hi Wendz!
My dentist books another session each time you go. You can't forget - it's done for you!
Hi Jayne!
I really feel for your son. Poor thing. Poor you!

meredic said...

I spat the brace out when I was about fifteen for the usual teenage reasons. You could use my teeth to crimp piecrusts now.
As for the degree of open occlusion... well I certainly cant open packets easily.

sallywrites said...

Meredic
There you go then! :)

Debs said...

Cute story. Glad everyone had a report from the dentist. :)

headless chicken said...

Sally, tell ESOS the Renegade had to wear the orthodontic head-brace but it paid off...he has film-star teeth now!:D

sallywrites said...

Thank you Debs!

I will HC!

meredic said...

Yeah well I'vr got filmstar teeth as well....Sort of a cross between Skippy the bush kangaroo and Boris Karloff

Cornish Dreamer said...

A very funny account, especially the older children doing their teeth in the car! Sounds like it was an exhausting experience.

RT

Pamela said...

I've never heard of a family appointment with the dentist. What a concept.

I don't even use the same dentist as the hubby.

ChrisB said...

Sally re- fruit loaf I agree less sugar is better; I would not have thought to put salt in it.

sallywrites said...

Meredic! ummmm...........
Beccy - it was - but then it often is, but funny too..
Pamela - it started when they were all little and I had to take them all with me anyway or leave either hubby or me with five children to look after while one of us went to the dentist. It was just easier then!! And now????
Chris - you don't need much, but it adds a bit of bite!!

pierre l said...

This reminds me that the people of Quebec must have like salt. I have seen them putting salt on an apple, and also putting salt into North American yellow beer (which seemed to make it fizz...). This was 40 years ago (and I haven't even visited for 30 years), so things have probably changed (health conscious and all that). It is claimed that there is a lot of salt in processed food, of course.
So the next we make a cake I'll try a bit of salt. We don't have cake very often because my younger son and I eat it all much too quickly. Hence we restrict the supply.
This post has also reminded me that I am not in my dentist's good books at the moment: I just found an appointment card for early Feb, and I am sure I missed it!
As ever, I have to admire your organisation skills, getting all these people sorted out and your writing skills telling us all about it. I also hope the leg is improving.

Anonymous said...

Taking 5 kids to the dentist! My god that must cost a fortune in both terms of money and mental energy.

Madam you deserve a medal

sallywrites said...

Pierre - Thank you. You are very kind.
Norman - A medal would be great. Thanks!